I hate garage sales

I really do.

This topic comes up today as I sit in my home office facing the neighborhood street. Both neighbors that I can see are participating in the weekend community garage sale that runs Friday and Saturday.

First, I hate the general concept of a garage sale. If you have old junk to get rid of, get rid of it. Give it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. If it has any value, sell it on Craig's List or eBay. What is the point of selling a beat up 10 year old soft cover book for 10 cents? And your turntable from the early 80s is garbage to 99% of the populace and valuable only to those looking for old turntables -- who will be watching eBay or Craig's List. Then you'll get $10 for it instead of $1.

Just about the only exception I can think of are used kids toys. I'm not talking a beat up spiderman action figure, but those large plastic buildings and things every modern 2 year old ends up with somehow. These things will last forever, and they're too big to ship anywhere, and Goodwill probably doesn't have the space either. So these should be recycled within the current community of parents of young children. But still, why a garage sale? Know what I do? On Sunday evening before Monday morning trash pickup, I set it at the end of my driveway slightly away from the rest of the garbage (or wait until the next morning to put out the real trash). In a dozen times of doing this with big plastic kids toys or old furniture, the stuff has been there the next morning exactly once. And in that case the piece was crap. And the large-item pick up of our trash service got it Monday morning anyway. Easy. And I didn't have to put up with hundreds of strangers wandering through my garage all day long.

I'll admit some of this feeling is left over from my childhood of being dragged to various garage sales. Back then though, there was a little more innocence to everything. There was a slight chance of hitting a nice antique somewhere. My brother and I were also keenly aware of baseball cards and possible hidden gems. But in today's age, anyone with valuable antiques or baseball cards know it. And if they're for sale, they're on eBay or for auction at the local auction house. The owners are going to get every last dime their personal treasures may be worth. You're not going to score a $5000 antique shaker desk at a garage sale for $20.

Working a garage sale also stinks. A majority of these are held on days that end up being just too hot. Why do I want to stand in my garage all day on a Saturday? To make maybe $100 haggling for every last dime? Here's a task for all the garage seller people: take the amount of money you made and divide by the sum of hours you spent running the sale, advertising the sale, and setting up for the sale. What's that come out to? $2/hour maybe? If you're lucky. I can think of a million other things I'd rather do with my weekend than earn $2/hour standing in a garage talking to morons.

Which brings me to the next topic of the attendees of garage sales. It's been interesting this Friday morning watching this cross section of York county park in front of my house. The first thing is that this is a Friday -- so I'm really only seeing a) retired people or b) unemployed peopled. Now both these groups could certainly be in a position where every last dime helps. Here's one way I can help you folks out -- stop going to garage sales and buying crap you don't need. Really. Sure, 50 cents is a great price for that 5 year old $50 remote control car. But I could have saved you another 50 cents. And how much are you paying for gas driving from sale to sale in that '86 Cutlass? 50 miles * $3 per gallon / 17 miles per gallon = $8.82. There's another $8 I could have saved you. Or at least you could have driven to Walmart with that job application in hand.

Even on a Saturday where whole families are drug out of the house bargain hunting for used bicycles and decades old video games. Nobody that visits a garage sale is ever in a very good mood. Mothers yelling at kids, kids running around wildly, fathers wishing they were home either a) watching TV or b) taking care of something that needs done and this is his only 'free' day of the whole weekend where he can finally get one of the nagging tasks off the list, but no, here he is digging through stuff that will be in the trash Monday morning unless his spoiled kids just have to have it.

But here we are anyway with half the people trying to get a couple bucks for their old crap and other people with money burning holes in their pockets that can't wait to buy old crap. Capitalism at its best. Or worst?